Our Outdoors: First Watch
By Nick Simonson
Opening day of North Dakota’s bow season sits in that stretch of time where summer and fall mix together. Cool dewy mornings of Labor Day weekend melt into warm afternoons, and despite the fact that deer are in their warm weather patterns and most often present themselves with a reserve limited to those habits from previous months, the start of the season remains a big draw for me. Heading out into the dark countryside, where the glow of town’s lights is muted by a rise in the hills and the 30-minute drive down interstate, then blacktop, then dusty gravel that lay between my home and my stand, I took to my perch for the first sit to watch the stars fade out, the sun take to the sky, and the world come alive around me.
Adjusting to the first day back on stand is always a challenge for my eyes, like walking out of a dark theater during an afternoon matinee and letting them adjust to the light levels. In the first light of pre-dawn, squinting at the dark shapes along the far hillside, and the cuts and tire marks in the harvested field provides the first opportunity to think I saw a deer, and to feel that slight increase in heart rate as I wonder if the slight wobble in the far off object is the animal taking steps, or the pulsing in-and-out-of-focus of my middle-aged eyes. More often this past weekend, it was the latter.
However, as dawn came on the wings of a five-bird flock of whistling wood ducks whizzing from the creek bottom and the wild flapping of scattered mourning doves, I made out the immovable objects and features on the landscape and connected my eyes on a brown form at the far side of the field, gingerly picking its way into the stubble from the western draw. A second one joined it and the first rays of the sun lit up their auburn sides as I ranged them from my position. They were two fawns, mowing through the shoots of green rising on recent rains over the dry area through the stalks of a drought-shortened wheat field. Without the normal parental supervision they usually still had this time of year, I began to wonder as I watched them find their breakfast.
Had their mother been taken by a predator? Was she a victim of the recent resurgence of EHD in the area? Was it possible that, as the twins were comparable in relative age to a human teenager, she had already sent them into the world on their own and was enjoying empty nest grazing elsewhere? The two provided no answers, but as they moved through the field, they seemed confident and well developed enough to allow for the last, most anthropomorphic, and certainly least morbid, explanation to take hold.
Along the low portion of the expanse, they moved in my direction from 200 yards, taking their time and soaking in the warming sunlight as they nibbled on the grasses. From time to time, they’d look around as cues from nature brought the morning into full effect. A squawking pair of blue herons flew overhead, drawing their attention. A group of seven magpies came up from the bottom, with one landing in a nearby tree, calling while the other half dozen flapped off into the hills. As a large red-tailed hawk circled overhead, the pair of deer closed the distance to 20 yards in the grassy area along the draw to the right of my stand.
It was there they went behind me, down into the cut in the landscape and back into the bottom where the creek wound down to the small impoundment about a mile away, leaving the slight adrenaline rush that comes with seeing an animal so close and trying not to spook it, even if the thought of taking a shot never crossed my mind. In total, the two fawns with fading summer spots were in front of me for more than an hour and fifteen minutes, providing for a good first watch of the season…in our outdoors.
Our Outdoors: In Good Standing
By Nick Simonson
I’ve never been fond of heights. Despite being marketed (and statistically confirmed) as the safest way to travel, airplanes have always made me uneasy. Even the top of the Ferris wheel in the Fargo Scheels makes my stomach drop a little bit when my son and I reach the apex on the slow-moving trip to the second story. With lightning striking and rendering a trusted deer stand inoperable, what with its melted bolts and connection points, charred footpad from the point of impact and twisted legs that transferred the discharge into the ground, I began the process of shopping around and balancing my need for concealment in the treetops this coming season against my well-established acrophobia.
Of course, as with all good things, the lightweight telescopic aluminum model I had secured some time ago was no longer available for purchase, even in the deepest reaches of internet, as the business which built it had been acquired by another, which in turn discontinued the model. Perhaps the nicest thing about the electrified set of scrap resting alongside my garage was its adjustability from eight feet on up to 15 feet. It could be easily raised or lowered to match branches on a tree and came mostly assembled straight out of the box. But with all the interlocking holes showing the stress of 1.21 gigawatts, it was beyond saving. Thus, I was left to procure a standard ladder stand to replace it, and the options were endless and towering.
Everything on the store shelves seemed to be more or less the same – 15 feet this, 18.5 feet that – all of which were near the top of my comfort level for being suspended in space, even if tethered to the tree by a nylon strap and my safety harness, which I wear religiously under my early autumn camo and November blaze. Finding one with a folding seat and a removable shooting rail which would be unnecessary for the parcel I bow hunt, I spent a hot hour in the sun assembling the stand on my tailgate and slid the rungs into place to get an idea of how high it would be. It didn’t look too bad.
Following a sweaty drag from the truck into the wooded north edge of the field where I had watched countless deer filter in and out over the past two seasons, I reassembled the ladder legs and placed the base of the stand against the lone boxelder tree that had managed to grow straight up along the slight dip which led to the nearby creek. Slowly, I lifted the stand into place and heard the seat crunch against the small branches above. I balked at the idea of climbing up and doing some saw work on them and noted that they would likely provide a good back drop to break up my silhouette if I only lowered the stand. Again bracing the metal rungs and slowly walking the elevated perch back to the ground, I removed the lowest portion and raised it back into place. Falling perfectly in line with the first set of branches and leaves, I sighed a bit of relief as I knocked the climb down to 13 feet. With a quick insertion of the brace and the addition of a ratchet strap for stability, I climbed up and locked the teeth of the seat tight into the tree, secured the base and trimmed off two small branches for comfort and ease of draw.
In the end it was a fortuitous coming together of factors: a tree with perfect placement just off the edge of the main field providing a 20-yard shot to the travel corridor, a perfect backdrop to break up my form while on stand, and a vantage point that didn’t make my nose bleed or my stomach flip on the climb up or down. With a solid canopy of branches providing a great screen with two good shooting lanes for deer coming into and leaving the field, I found even greater comfort in both the stand modification and its placement. While I know that height plays a big role in lifting scent away from the sensitive noses of deer and likely helps reduce the chances of them seeing an unintentional shift of a foot or the drawing back of a bow, comfort and safety on stand is perhaps the most important consideration of any hunt. With those items combined and the season start just a few weeks away, I loaded up the truck and headed home, finding myself in good standing once again…in our outdoors.
Our Outdoors: On Target
By Nick Simonson
The arrow barely hung from its tip stuck smack dab in the middle of the blue circle on the large black block ten yards out from the line on the
floor which my now six-year-old son straddled in the open shoot section of the archery range. If I didn’t see it myself, I wouldn’t have believed it, but there it was, flung by the half-draw of an excited little boy holding the beginner compound bow with a string so loose it had popped off the top cam just a few shots before. It was his seventh arrow ever, following a quiver full of shots that bounced off the hard floor, dinged off the post holding a bag style target, and finally a few that issued that feel-good “thwack!” sound and made contact with the block we had moved to. With smiling mouth agape he turned to me and his volunteer 4-H instructor, Karla, and asked if we had seen it, and we congratulated him and assured him that we most certainly had.
His next several arrows joined his perfect one on the target and he was more than satisfied with the progress he had made in his first 15 shots of what hopefully will be a lifetime of shooting sports when we wrapped for the night. Pulling the arrows from the foam and with the reminder to keep them points down, he brought them back and walked them out to the main area and deposited them in the holding quivers for other kids to shoot. His excitement continued to radiate as he donned his coat and hat and we made our way out of the complex into the cold and light snow of the evening, our conversation revolving around the things he’d learned in the thirty minute introduction to archery.
I can recall shooting bow once in my life prior to getting into deer hunting. Maybe 10 or 11, I was at a week-long Boy Scout day camp at the National Fish Hatchery north of my hometown of Valley City popping colored balloons tacked to hay bales near the canoe launch with a recurve bow alongside my fellow den mates under the warm summer sun. Finally, when I became a still hunter at the age of 30, I picked one up when I was fitted at a small archery shop near Virginia, Minn. Thankfully, I’ve been able to experience the excitement, the disappointment, my bonehead mistakes and my favorite memories from time on stand with that bow in my hand giving me a ticket to a new view on the ways of the wild world. At the very least, the satisfaction of a well-placed handful of arrows in a foam deer target or the block in my backyard has provided enough summer twilight satisfaction to make the endeavor more than worth it. Many times, in the quiet of an autumn evening watching the does and fawns play in the hay field I often sit on the edge of while scanning its perimeter for a buck and waiting for that adrenaline rush, I’ve thought, why didn’t I pick this up sooner?
Regardless of the reasons, I’m better able to share my stories, suggestions and – as my bowhunting goes – mostly shortcomings at this point in my life with my friends, family and hopefully my boys, so that their trip up the learning curve can be more enjoyable and a better understanding can be found on the whole process. That’s just how it worked out for me; and though at this point I’d probably trade my way with words for the 15 years of experience foregone, I know that he won’t have to. The important thing realized from the start of his short introductory course is that my son has started on a path that I can help foster and further without being forceful. The fateful fling of a single arrow striking dead center in the blue dot all but sealed the idea in his head that he would indeed be an archer. Upon our return home, he relayed his account of the evening drawing the bow, letting it go, dinging metal, smacking black foam targets and the one shot that stuck indelibly in both of our memories. Wherever it goes from here, at least I know he’s on target to be ahead of where I have been with the bow…in our outdoors.